A quick update on this week's progress. While we are set back due to some complications that have arisen at no fault of our own. We are having to redesign some of our bogies so that it is narrower (the motor team has informed us that the wheels on the new track will overhang). By doing this not only will the entire drive bogie have to be made thinner, but the route selection will also have to be made thinner or there will be some hanging off of the side of the bogie. The alternative is that we cut whatever overhangs the side of the bogie. 

Starting next week we will start to cut all of the materials using MakerSpace tools. We will specifically be looking to use the waterjet cutter. After all the materials are cut and assuming there are no flaws we will then begin assembly. To do this we will be using whatever welding material is available, hopefully, the welding tools supplied by MakerSpace.

Shop Drawings

As of 2/20/19, there has not been a significant change to our plan/CAD. Recently our main focus was the track, but as they have notified us that there will not be any significant changes, we have begun creating our shop drawings. After we have done this we will go out and purchase the required materials so that we can cut out our designs and weld everything together. We have also been notified that our presentation (originally planned for 2/27/19) will be pushed out a week allowing all the teams time to prep their presentations and allow for seniors to go to the job fair.

On top of the crunch that we are already experiencing, the full-scale bogie team is working with the controls team to properly spec out and place the linear actuator that will be used to control the route selection system. Though we are unable to get an exact number on the amount of force it will take to move the route selection, a rough guess(timate) was made (~5lb as the system is definitely lighter than that) so that both teams at least have a starting point. Checking in with our coach Danny, he says that we are fine and that we should try and make sure we have the linear actuator specced out ASAP.

Progress after Winter Break

During our second official week at the new facilities, the full-scale bogie team has finally started cracking down on creating a prototype for Maker Faire. Since all the teams have had to move, the track has been disassembled and left in the Engineering Courtyard. This only makes creating a prototype more difficult as the new facilities currently do not have ample room for a full sized, full-scale model. Another issue we have run into is that the track team is having to reuse a previous years track and having to alter it so that the designs other teams have made will be able to work on the modified track. 

Since the clock is now ticking and with every passing week Maker Faire gets a closer, allocation of funding for fabrication becomes an issue. While there is a pool of money all the teams can draw from, the issue becomes allocating portions of the budget to certain teams. Though to our benefit, because we are reusing a track from a previous year, this should reduce the cost of track and thus allowing for other teams a larger portion of the budget. As for the bogie team, our designs depended on the track teams new designs and to our delight, they have informed us that there will only be slight modifications to the original track design and that our original model should still be sufficient.